[Campaigns-l] My 2 cents

[Jamie Baswell]

I think the wiki portion should be as factual as possible.

What I'd love to see:

Name

Biography
-- Written by himself or supporters. Not a political history, which will be
covered later, but a simple history, where they're from, what schools they
attended, generic stuff like that.

Voting Record
-- List of voting history, if any.  Each entry can be a simple item number
and how they voted.  Each item number can itself be a link to a different
Wiki entry containing a summary of the bill and what various candidates have
said about it, if anything.


For example:

[Bill 90210] - Voted NO
"I voted no on this because of a rider that required all California
residents to replace their cars with penguins." - Mr. Candidate, New York
Times interview, 1997
[Bill OU812] - Voted YES
"I voted yes on this because I think it's important to save the Alaska
Salmon." - Mr. Candidate, Campaign Wikia, 2006


If you click on [Bill 90210], you should get at least a brief summary of
what it was, and Mr. Candidate's comments should be echoed on that page,
along with the comments of every other candidate who had anything to say
about it.

So we can see what Mr. Candidate said about it on his page or we can click
on the item and see what everyone said about it.

This list should be a community effort, not just up to the campaigner to
post the ones he wants to popularize.  If he voted NO on something 30 years
ago and wants to comment about how he would vote YES now if given a chance,
he or his supporters can add comments to that effect, but the fact that he
did vote NO should remain on the page.


Other sections could include memorable quotes (with references) links to
speeches, debate transcripts, etc.


The bottom line for me is I would love to be able to see that Joe Blow is
running for governor or whatever, then go here and type "Joe Blow" and see a
list of things he's voted on in the past, what those things actually were
about, anything he had to say about it, etc.

Comments from random people should be left to the forums.  Comments from
opponets should be made on their own page, not here.

e.g.
 [Bill 90210] - Voted NO
"I voted no on this because of a rider that required all California
residents to replace their cars with penguins." - Mr. Candidate, 1997
"You voted no because you fear change and you're racist against penguins." -
Mr. Opponet, 2006

The second comment should be deleted, since creating a Debate Wiki would
just be ugly.  Mr. Opponet can write a speech about it and link that
seperately on his own page if he'd like.

Similarly:
 [Bill 90210] - Voted NO
"I voted no on this because of a rider that required all California
residents to replace their cars with penguins.  Mr. Opponet has no respect
for the rights of modern Californians to not be subjected to the daily abuse
of penguins." - Mr. Candidate, 1997

That should be trimmed down to read as it was before.  The second sentence
is not directly relevant to why he voted NO and just invites a mid-wiki
flamewar.

The tighter we keep it to the relevant facts, I think, the better.
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